Why did no one tell us that as you start getting older, you start having trouble sleeping? Some of us have trouble falling asleep, some of us wake up in the middle of the night — or even worse an hour before the alarm goes off — and are dull and tired the rest of the day. 

We asked readers and Eugene Weekly staffers how they deal with their bouts of insomnia. 

Reader remedies

• I’ve cut out coffee to get off of the stimulus-crash cycle. To get to sleep I count my breaths, one through four, and slow it down. Slower breathing sends a message to the brain that it’s OK to relax and sleep. Going to bed and getting up at the same time helps. Better to skip late night TV, but I watch it anyway. Fiction is the only drug I haven’t been able to give up. — Lynn Porter

• Yoga Nidra or “yogic sleep” is a wonderful way to calm the body before sleep, or the middle of the night. There are many guided meditations on YouTube. I recommend The Mindful Movement. If you’ve tried other types of meditation without a lot of success, don’t poo poo Yoga Nidra too quickly. When we are able to focus on our body, there is a physiological response in the brain that quiets all that rooftop chatter going on, especially when we feel anxious. To learn more, check out the Huberman Lab podcast. Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist from Stanford, is dedicated to educating the public about science and solid health practices. — Melissa Ivan

• So, one of the joys of young-onset Parkinson’s is sleep fragmentation, which means most nights I wake up after between three and five hours. I have my big trick and my little trick for getting back to sleep. 

The big trick: Get out of bed, out of the bedroom, sit down and read a couple of chapters in a good book. No overhead lights — just a little clip-on reading lamp that’s amber to minimize the blue light exposure. Read until I start thinking in pictures instead of words, which is a sign my dream machine is cranking up again, and then go get back in bed.

If that doesn’t work, sometimes a middle-of-the-night peanut butter sandwich does. I have no idea why. — Doyle Srader

• To avoid pulling my hair out or walking into traffic, I genuinely and highly recommend birding. It has a reputation of being slow and boring (which it can be!), but it allows you to become much more familiar with our avian neighbors. And seeing birds behave in ways you would have otherwise missed can feel very intimate. It’s nice to look at birds and remember that they aren’t political. It’s a bird <3. — Lucy Feuerborn (she/they/he)

• I’ve found that reading a boring, difficult book works wonders. The best one I’ve found is Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant. I couldn’t even get through a paragraph; my brain just gave up and I was asleep before I knew it. Karl Marx’s Capital was another good one. The slog through his explanation of “use-value,” “exchange-value” and “surplus-value” had one redeeming value — sending me off to the land of nod. The sections on the living conditions of the poor and working class of his time are probably too harrowing to do the trick, though. — Jeremy Wade

• Take a deep breath through the nose, filling the stomach first, then the chest and then breath out slowly through the mouth. Repeat. — Donald French

• I invented this system and can recommend it for insomnia caused by stress. All three steps serve a purpose, so do all of them together:

    1) Count backwards from 100 — your brain can’t deal with counting backward and processing other information at the same time.

    2) Do the count on your exhale — no special breathing techniques — linking the count with your exhale is calming and keeps your brain focused on the process.

    3) At some point your brain will skip a number — very important — go with whatever number just popped into your head and continue counting down, this is your brain getting tired. Do not make any effort to force yourself to continue the exact sequence; just take the new number and continue to count backward from there, no matter how many times you find yourself skipping around. — Elizabeth Luce

• I find progressive relaxation exercises with deep breathing  helpful.  I also use four dropperfulls of valerian tincture with 1/3 to 1/2 cup of wine helpful to relax me for sleep. — Sue Bitterling

Staff sleep aids

• The Calm app and its sleep stories are my go-to (when whiskey and exhaustion have failed). “The Nordland Night Train” with Erik Braa on YouTube was my gateway. At first I was like, “I can’t listen to this dude talking ever-so-boringly,” and as it turns out, I couldn’t — I passed out. I finally made it to the end of the story, and then discovered all the other stories on the app and YouTube. Camila Cabello, Harry Styles, Matthew McConaughey all drone me into dreamland. Lin-Manuel Miranda narrates in Spanish, and my Spanish is terrible, but I still pass out. — Camilla Mortensen, editor

• Being active during the day, and adding in some jogs, would tell my body to get rest. If that does not work, I like to attempt to read a book, although it does not seem to last for more than 15 minutes. — Seira Kitagawa, Snowden reporter

• Scrolling TikTok for hours before bed is not the best way to get in that nighttime headspace, so put your phone down for an hour before you crawl into bed. Instead, take time to do some light cleaning, shower or draw. If you just can’t put that phone down, try listening to audio content instead of watching videos to give your eyes a rest. — Eve Weston, reporter, photographer, maker of EW TikToks

•  Falling asleep in the first place depends on cutting back coffee and evening screen time, as well as regular exercise. One thing I love about old age is the hour-long 3 am semi-dream state, in which I often get my best writing done while lying in bed — or at least mapped out in my mind before falling back into restful sleep. — Bob Keefer, arts editor emeritus

• Once I wake up in the middle of the night, I have a really hard time turning my brain off and going back to sleep. For some strange reason, this works: My long-suffering hubby picks up the pencil and we settle in to work on a New York Times crossword puzzle.I am literally out like a light in less than 30 seconds. Every time. — Jody Rolnick, publisher